#183 CEO & Co-Founder Harness, Jyoti Bansal: Three-Layered Cake

Guest: Jyoti Bansal, CEO and co-founder of Harness

Cisco bought Jyoti Bansal’s first company AppDynamics for $3.7 billion, making him a very wealthy man. But after two African safaris, a week of Michelin-starred meals in Tokyo, and more adventures all around the world, he realized that spending his money didn’t truly make him happy. After some soul-searching, he realized what he really enjoyed: “I liked to build companies. That is my craft ... If someone enjoys playing gold for six hours, I would enjoy working on a startup for six hours.”

In this episode, Jyoti and Joubin discuss the evolution of Grit, Carlos Delatorre, Tom Mendoza, Glean, growing up in India, traveling the world, three-star restaurants, soul-searching, automating gruntwork, paying for nice hotels, red-eye flights, product-market fit, Jeff Bezos, the “three-layered cake,” Frank Slootman, raising the bar for distribution, technical debt, structural efficiency, and taking pride in your work.

In this episode, we cover:

• (00:59) - Top-tier CROs
• (04:18) - The video game levels of startups
• (07:24) - Selling AppDynamics to Cisco
• (09:16) - Keeping up with high-growth companies
• (12:10) - The chip on Jyoti’s shoulder
• (16:15) - How he thinks about money
• (18:02) - Do what you enjoy every day
• (22:32) - “What would make me happy?”
• (24:56) - Starting BIG Labs and Harness
• (29:16) - Adjusting to a new reality
• (34:13) - Work-life balance
• (36:30) - What gets easier — and harder — over time
• (41:44) - Product vs. distribution
• (46:46) - Paying it forward
• (48:29) - The next level
• (50:24) - The four lists
• (53:45) - Assigning clear responsibilities
• (56:06) - Jyoti’s favorite interview question
• (57:41) - Who Harness is hiring

Links:

• Connect with Jyoti
  • LinkedIn
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
• This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm